Exploring history and place in the Volunteer State

Tennessee State Parks and Trail of Tears

For over 40 years Tennessee state parks have been central to telling the story of the Cherokee Removal. For most of that time, the focus was at Red Clay State Park in Bradley County, shown above.

But in the last year, officials at David Crockett State Park in Lawrenceburg have marked extant sections of the trail and with the help of the National Park Service and the MTSU Center for Historic Preservation have set up interpretive panels, shown below.

This new effort, also found at Port Royal State Park, help to show the impact of the Trail of Tears, then and now.